Well, not really, no. You shouldn't import into the global namespace for clarity - "from numpy import *" is very unclear. But importing specific objects is fine

Well, not really, no. You shouldn't import into the global namespace for clarity - "from numpy import *" is very unclear. But importing specific objects is fine and is done all the time. And if you're in a notebook setting and value "less typing" over everything else it's certainly encouraged. Dynamic dispatch would help if you also defined a "rand" function in scope, but that's a way more general argument and IMO you'd lose more than you gain with it.